The Mockers and other Verses :: :: University of Virginia Library

Lone is Glen Erna, lifted high,
Niched among mountain ramparts steep,
That guard few pastures green for sheep,
And one clear water, where the sky
Lets clouds sail by, or stranded lie,
Or drops adown night's stillness deep
From very far
The shining shadow of some star
A dream to be in its crystal sleep.

'Twixt crested crag and lapping shore
The clan bides, as their sires whilome
In stronghold kept and fortress home
Aloof from men; for nevermore
Those cliff-walls hoar ope any door
To frustrate feet that thither roam,
Save only where

One rude path climbs fast by the stair
A plunging cataract sweeps with foam.

There, when the winter's hush of snow,
Or raving storm-blasts fiercely cold,
Drove men to shelter as sheep to fold,
Drear waxed their days, twice captived so;
Lag-foot and slow the hours did go,
Empty: nay, oft the burning gold
Of summer skies
Would leaden seem in listless eyes,
Since blank and barren its splendour rolled.

But once through mists curled blue as smoke
With fronded fire the hillside flared,
When o'er the pass a minstrel fared,
And therewithal great wonder woke
Among the folk, for 'neath his cloak
A small bright harp he bore, that dared
A wilder strain
Than wood-birds waken after rain,
Or stream-floods, storming through dusk calm-aired.

And all that winter's chilly dearth
He charmed away their roofs among,
Their dwellings his, and theirs his song.
Foregathering by the chief's wide hearth,
He made them mirth, while mourned the earth,
Frost-gripped, and no man deemed it long,
Such strange delight
Flowed with his music day and night,
To fleet their thoughts in a joyous throng.

Then, at an amber sunsetting,
Softly the wind and water stirred,
And straight, as if a call he heard,
The minstrel spake: The spring, the spring:
Now to my King behoves me bring
The message many a day deferred.
With morn's rose-red
I go my way far hence, he said;
And sudden sorrow ensued his word.

And, murmuring after fall of night
About the chief's hearth, angered men
Talked how ill days must come again,

That lacked their singer. Quoth a wight:
Darken his sight, or from him smite
A foot; he bides our prisoner then;
For lame or blind,
Methinks, a path would hardly find,
Straying and stumbling from forth the Glen.

All pitiless, ne'er a voice gainsaid
That villainy, but every one
Fell plotting; save the chief's young son,
Who heard their cruel threat dismayed,
And hastening bade the minstrel, laid
In happy sleep, that danger shun;
Who from his dream
Rose, and stole up beside the stream,
In shadow shrouded or else undone.

But ere he felt the driven spray
Of the white fall, mischanced a chink
In rifted clouds let moonlight blink
Sheen on his harp, and so betray
By glimmering ray his secret way

With deadly doom his lot to link;
For on his track
Pursuers sped to hale him back
Along the perilous river-brink.

And there was wrought a deed of woe,
And there a fount of music marred,
When, wrestling more than life to guard,
Or yielding to a nobler foe,
The torrent flow that surged below,
Headlong to death down dashed the bard;
And like a spark
Quenched in mad waves, that turbulent dark
His harp bright-flashing a moment starred.

Now, when once more the mute glen thrilled
To breath of spring, with sunset flame
O'er the flushed water wafted came
Soft music, that the silence filled
With strains long stilled; and sin's dread chilled

Black hearts remembering. 'Tis the same,
The same harp's sound,
Deep at the hills' root sunk and drowned,
They whispered, stricken with fear and shame.

Only the chief's son, crept anear,
Hearkened, and gazed with eyes grown wild
And wistful, even as who, exiled,
Meets speech of home. Said he: How clear
Across the mere his harp I hear.
That calls me. And when dawn-light smiled
Dim mists away
Where slumbering waters breathless lay,
To deeper sleep they had lulled the child.

And still, when past yon mountain-wall
Spring wakes, a harp at sunset glow
Cries; and the grieving clansfolk know
That on their best beloved of all
The fate doth fall to hear the call,

And forth on trackless journey go
From hearts left lone.
Such bitter seed in sooth was sown
By greedy hands, that for joy reaped woe.